US EditionScientists Document over 16,000 Footprints in the World’s Most Extensive Dinosaur Tracksite
Researchers documented 16,600 footprints and 1,321 trackways at Carreras Pampa, revealing diverse theropod behaviors and a rare snapshot of dinosaur activity in a single sediment layer.
- A team of paleontologists from California’s Loma Linda University documented a record 16,600 theropod footprints at Carreras Pampa in Torotoro National Park, Bolivia, published last Wednesday in PLOS One.
- On an ancient shoreline, tracks formed on an ancient mudflat with ripple marks aligned northwest-southeast, and authors say a single sediment layer created a coastal 'superhighway' around 66 million years ago.
- Counting and tracing revealed 1,321 trackways and 289 solitary prints plus 1,378 swim traces with claw-scratch marks, preserving walking, running, swimming, tail-dragging, and sharp-turn behaviors.
- Researchers say ongoing fieldwork will continue as park rangers and guides protect the prints, which nearly faced destruction by highway crews two years ago.
- Setting new world records, Carreras Pampa's world-record designations and Lagerstätte classification offer behavioral insights where bones are lacking.
82 Articles
82 Articles
Thousands of dinosaur footprints in the rock - leaving behind more than 60 million years ago: paleontologists have made a spectacular discovery in Bolivia, which indicates the behaviour of extinct animals.
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By CARLOS GUERRERO and ISABEL DEBRE TORO, Bolivia (AP) — According to legend, the huge three-finger footprints found throughout the highlands of central Bolivia came from monsters with supernatural force, capable of sinking their claws even into the solid stone. Then, scientists arrived in the area in the 1960s and dispelled the fears of children, determining that the strange footprints belonged in reality to gigantic biped dinosaurs that roamed…
Associated Press News
16,000 fossil footprints in central Bolivia reveal dinosaur behavior
Legend once had it that the huge, three-toed footprints scattered across the central highlands of Bolivia came from supernaturally strong monsters — capable of sinking their claws even into solid rock.
Researchers have discovered around 18,000 dinosaur traces in Bolivia. The findings show running and swimming movements and provide new evidence of the behaviour of the animals.
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